Why so choppy?

[sooper_droid12]

honestly though, ...old tech that works is better than new tech that does not. why is scrollin choppy man? friggin 1g processor and still choppy why? what's that all about? i hope it gets fixed.

Did you not READ the entire thread? It's native in the Android OS and not a product of the hardware. Google needs to make better use of the GPU. But honestly, I don't think Google cares because some of the best PCs today still lag in scrolling. Apple just has better polish in that regard, both in computers and smartphones. I'm not that worried about it.

 

[david83]

So while you are right that it is crappy code by a lazy Google, it is really because Apple was smart enough to put the graphics load on a GPU and not on the CPU. Google chose not to and will never have Android do that. So you are out of luck.

I can't imagine it comes down to laziness. Google have designed it this way for a reason. If you are right that android doesnt use the GPU then maybe this is just a result of the open source nature of Android and is therefore unavoidable.

 

[sooper_droid12]

are u kidding me? performance is THE MOST IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE of a SMARTPHONE! lag is a big deal. common now...

Lagging in screen transitions and scrolling isn't a big deal to me. What matters to me is that these current smartphones continue to get faster in accomplishing their tasks. And the issue isn't so much lag as it is the choppy-ness. Choppy doesn't mean that its slow, only that it's not smooth. The data is there. As Engadget demonstrated in loading their page, the N1 and DROID scrolled through much faster than the iPhone, but the iPhone did it smoother. Which would you rather have? For me, I'd like to get through a webpage scroll faster, even if that sacrifices smoothness (rather than doing it smoothly and slower).

 

[david83]

smoothness = easier to use and a more enjoyable experience

 

[djclark]

It is simple. iPhone uses GPU acceleration and OpenGL to make their animations and scrolling smooth. Android does not and relies solely on the CPU. The CPU isn't the most efficient way to do these things, the GPU could do them way better, but Google just chose to design Android that way because it is probably easier to develop.

Until Android gets hardware acceleration for things like this, or until CPUs get ridiculously powerful, these things are going to still be choppy next to an iPhone.

This is it exactly. Apples UI stuff is acclerated. Androids is not.

 

[djclark]

With this mentality, the iPhone will reign supreme for ever.

Lagging in screen transitions and scrolling isn't a big deal to me. What matters to me is that these current smartphones continue to get faster in accomplishing their tasks. And the issue isn't so much lag as it is the choppy-ness. Choppy doesn't mean that its slow, only that it's not smooth. The data is there. As Engadget demonstrated in loading their page, the N1 and DROID scrolled through much faster than the iPhone, but the iPhone did it smoother. Which would you rather have? For me, I'd like to get through a webpage scroll faster, even if that sacrifices smoothness (rather than doing it smoothly and slower).

 

[Napster]

smoothness = easier to use and a more enjoyable experience

Could not have said it better myself.

 

[Dgree03]

Ok you all are delusional.. How many of you have even owned a 3gs? Do you have a nexus? Well i can tell you there is NOTHING that iphone has over andriod/nexus one. Iphone lags also... its slower opening apps and loading them, it is slower installing apps. I had a little choppiness and I mean A LITTLE but its nothing to declare that google is lazy at software.

With that logic apple is lazy at software too because it lags, or because it cant multitask or cant customize ANYTHING but wallpaper and phone ring tone.

Please stop the fanboism... its sickening.

 

[t-mizzle]

SIGH.....

You're right, all the components are not the same, they are all SUPERIOR on the Nexus One and it STILL cant scroll smoothly. This is where you logic fails. pwned.

Are you seriously telling me that the radio has somthing to do with performance?? LOLZ!

About your OS comment...have you even read this thread?? We are stating that Googles OS is poorly coded hence the scroll lag even with the fastest hardware available all while a 3 year old iphone with crappy hardware by todays standards scrolls very smoothy.

As for your comment "In the future, better hardware may mask poor hardware efficiency but only until the visuals and other elements of the next OS version set the bar higher, making deficiencies transparent again", another failed logic and this is quite funny how bad your logic fails here.....scrolling is the most BASIC feature of an OS and has been around since the first release of both Android and iphone OS yet even with the latest hardware and YEARS of OS development Google STILL cant make it scroll smooth which is quite amazing how poorly its OS is coded.

All of your comments are been proven wrong.

You completely missed the point. It's not about the components being better or worse, the point is that "clock for clock" comparisons are only accurate when comparing identical platforms. As for the GPU, we have yet to find out how the N1's compares vs. the 3GS's GPU. The iphone graphics have set the bar high, I do know that. I saw 3d demos for the N900 and the N1, N900 was much better but there was room for improvement on the N1, how much is still unclear.

The radio operates all the time, it's extremely important how much of a CPU power it uses. I do not know how many radios are used in the majority of phones out there nor do I know how "CPU friendly" each of them is.

The scrolling through menus is always better with hardware acceleration. It can be optimized, the next generation of phones might address the issue and hardware acceleration may be enabled. None of the 3 may apply or all of them may, it's too early to tell.

Regarding the OS, the poor coding seems unlikely to be the culprit since it's been almost 2 years, enough time to address the issue. It could be the lack of hardware acceleration that's the reason. TBH, that's what I believe the reason is. I don't know why it's not implemented. To make things worse, up until the Droid, all Android hardware was vastly inferior to iphone.

Until the Android engineers team joins this discussion, we won't have all the answers. But I can tell you now, they would laugh at you clock for clock comparisons. Which is the initial point you failed to concede.

I'm positive that Snapdragon will be analyzed heavily with it's increase in market share. I can't peg it quite yet, it's better than everything else Android was running in the past. But 1GHz is a marketing buzz. The analogy is flawed but I would have no use for a car that does 200 mph if it takes 10 seconds to get from 0-60.

 

[Supraman21]

Thanks guys for sharing your thoughts on this situation

 

[uf15]

I can't imagine it comes down to laziness. Google have designed it this way for a reason. If you are right that android doesnt use the GPU then maybe this is just a result of the open source nature of Android and is therefore unavoidable.

Why would open source have anything to do with it?

It is a laziness thing, or at least a show of what Google's priorities are. It is why the copy+paste solution is so complicated. It is why scrolling is choppy. Google could have easily put in the time to figure out effective ways to do these things better, but they chose not to.

Look, it isn't an iPhone vs. Android thing. iPhone has TONS of flaws. But it really shows you the different approaches from each company. iPhone lacks a lot of features like unobtrusive notifications, multitasking and for awhile copy+paste. But when they do implement things, they do them well and they are highly optimized and polished. Android on the other hand has these features, but they are still very raw and underdeveloped.

Android needs to use the GPU, but that would be a Android 3.0 or 4.0 thing even if they ever decide to do it.

 

[summerboy18]

It's simple
iPhone 3GS > Nexus One
nexus is nice but it's not optimized as iPhone. It's been out what 2 years now? Phone that can't even keep up with touch and scrolling is not acceptable no matter how bright it's futures are. Provide least user experince and then do something else.

 

[uf15]

It's simple
iPhone 3GS > Nexus One
nexus is nice but it's not optimized as iPhone. It's been out what 2 years now? Phone that can't even keep up with touch and scrolling is not acceptable no matter how bright it's futures are. Provide least user experince and then do something else.

It isn't that simple. Look at it this way, the Nexus 1 can multitask, it has double the screen resolution of the iPhone, notifications don't interrupt whatever you're doing. Those are great features. Now, I will also give you that iPhone is wonderfully polished.

And when you look around, what other devices do scroll pages smoothly? Storm 2 doesn't. Droid doesn't. HTC HD2 doesn't. Pre doesn't. iPhone is the only one that has figured it out.

 

[dsjr2006]

I agree. Mine is not choppy at all. As a software engineer, i can tell you exactly why the iphone 'seems' to scroll smoother.

1. I does not multitask. In android, the processor may be split between 20 different proccesses(apps) at the same time (including widgets).

2. The iphones OS limits the ability for the "user" to overload the processor. For instance, when scrolling through a web page on the iphone, you are limited to a certant speed(also known as kenetic scrolling). In android you can scroll as fast as you want throu a web page, but this also requires more processing thus reducing "smoothness" at times.

Once apple allows multitasking, the smooth thing will go out the window.

My Jailbroken 3GS using ProSwitcher to run Pandora & TomTom in the background still yields "smoother" scrolling and while your explanation makes sense it doesn't improve the user experience any.

To me it seems to be the little things that make the general public think something is better even if they can't explain what it is.

 

[Ogg]

not sure where you people are seeing choppiness... i havent experienced it at all other then on bootup splash screen... once its started its smooth as butter....

sounds like there might be an iphone fanboy or two on the forums making shit up to make themselves feel better...

 

[prowler63]

I think you guys are compairing the 3gs with an older android device. The nexus has extremly smooth scrolling and is faster than the 3gs in just about all compairisons.
See here: YouTube - Google Nexus One Vs. iPhone 3GS

The Nexus one won in every compairison except number of apps.
I own both devices and can contest to this.

How many of you that are complaining actually own the device?